Table Of ContentVinod Acharya
Nietzsche’s Meta-Existentialism
Monographien und Texte
zur Nietzsche-Forschung
Begründet von
Mazzino Montinari
Wolfgang Müller-Lauter
Heinz Wenzel
Herausgegeben von
Günter Abel, Berlin
Werner Stegmaier, Greifswald
Band 65
Vinod Acharya
Nietzsche’s
Meta-Existentialism
ISBN 978-3-11-031267-6
e-ISBN 978-3-11-031275-1
ISSN 1862-1260
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Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed to my development as a philosopher. First and fore-
most, I thank my parents for helping me cultivate the taste for a certain kind of
freedom and the impulse to pursue new and unexplored tasks, without which I would
not have ventured into philosophy. I would also like to thank Michael Gelven and Ted
Kisiel, my teachers at Northern Illinois University, who introduced me to Continental
philosophy, and helped me navigate my way through the complex terrain of Western
philosophy. As this book is adapted from my Ph.D. dissertation, I am grateful to my
dissertation committee members at Rice University for their invaluable advice and
support. I would like to thank Christian Emden for his encouragement and friend-
ship. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dan Conway. I have profited immensely from
our conversations on Nietzsche. I appreciate very much both the positive feedback
and the constructive criticisms that I have received from Dan at various stages of
this work. I also thank him for his enthusiasm and for his confidence in my project.
I am most indebted to Steve Crowell for his guidance, unflinching encouragement
and understanding without which this project would not have been possible. Steve’s
comments on the manuscript spurred me to think critically about my ideas and argu-
ments, and to make crucial revisions. I thank Steve for his support over the years and
for his belief in my philosophical abilities. This work benefited significantly from my
stay in Freiburg, Germany in 2009–2010, thanks to a DAAD research grant. Thanks to
Andreas Urs Sommer, Gitta Fehrenbach and Philipp Fehrenbach for their friendship
and hospitality in Freiburg. I also wish to thank the Humanities Research Center at
Rice for supporting my research through a Dissertation Writing Fellowship for the
academic year 2010–11. Lastly, I profoundly thank Summer. Summer’s loving enthusi-
asm for my work, her cheerful spirit, her keen eye for clarity and details, her openness
to new ideas, her ability to entertain conflicting perspectives while maintaining her
objectivity and composure, and her passion for travelling have deeply contributed to
the realization of this work.
Portions of the fourth chapter of this book were originally published as, “Nobility
and Decadence: The Vulnerabilities of Nietzsche’s Strong Type,” PhaenEx 7.1 (2012):
130–161. I gratefully acknowledge the permission to use this article.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations of Nietzsche’s texts are as follows:
AOM Assorted Opinions and Maxims
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy. “Attempt” denotes the 1886 Preface, titled “Attempt
at Self-Criticism.” “Foreword” denotes the 1872 Preface, titled “Foreword
to Richard Wagner.”
CW The Case of Wagner
D Daybreak
DS David Strauss
EH Ecce Homo. The four major divisions of this text are indicated by abbre-
viations of their titles: “Wise,” “Clever,” “Books,” and “Destiny.” The
subsections of “Books” that discuss Nietzsche’s individual works are
indicated by shortened titles of these works.
GM On the Genealogy of Morality. Roman numerals indicate the essay
number.
GS The Gay Science
HH I Human, All Too Human, Vol. I
HL On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life
KGW Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KSA Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe
Philosopher “The Philosopher: Reflections on the Struggle Between Art and Knowl-
edge”
Philosophy in the Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
Tragic Age
SE Schopenhauer as Educator
The Struggle “The Struggle between Science and Wisdom”
TI Twilight of the Idols. The eleven major divisions of this text are indicated
by abbreviations of their titles: “Maxims,” “Socrates,” “Reason,” “Real
World,” “Morality,” “Errors,” “Improvers,” “Germans,” “Expeditions,”
“Ancients,” and “Hammer.”
On Truth and Lies “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”
WS The Wanderer and His Shadow
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Roman numerals indicate the part number,
followed by the section number and a sub-section number, if any. The
Prologue at the beginning of the book is indicated by “Prologue” followed
by the section number.
Abbreviation of Kierkegaard’s text is as follows:
Postscript Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
viii Note on sources
Note on sources
In citing Nietzsche’s published works, I have used the above acronyms followed by
the appropriate section number, designated by Arabic numerals. Nietzsche’s Pref-
aces are indicated with a “Preface” after the book’s acronym, followed by the section
number of the Preface. All quotes appear in English. In some instances, I have quoted
the original German from the critical edition of Nietzsche’s collected works (KSA)
in addition to the English translation. In such cases, references to KSA indicate the
volume number followed by the page number.
In citing Nietzsche’s Nachlaβ of the 1860s and 1870s, I have used the title of the
corresponding essay or compilation in English followed by the relevant page number.
These unpublished writings include, “Homer on Competition,” “The Greek State,”
“The Pre-Platonic Philosophers,” “The Philosopher as Cultural Physician,” “The
Dionysiac World View,” “Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks,” “The Strug-
gle between Science and Wisdom,” “The Philosopher: Reflections on the Struggle
Between Art and Knowledge,” and “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.” Only
in citing the last four selections, I have used abbreviated versions of the titles (I have
indicated these abbreviated titles above), while I have employed the full titles for the
rest.
Finally, I have used the critical editions of Nietzsche’s collected works (KSA or
KGW) to refer to the compilation of Nietzsche’s Nachlaβ of the 1880s, which was pub-
lished as the anthology, Der Wille zur Macht. References to KSA and KGW provide the
corresponding volume number (and part number for KGW), followed by the relevant
fragment number and any relevant aphorism. I have referred to Walter Kaufmann’s
English translation (The Will to Power) in quoting this unpublished material.
Any deviations from the consulted English translations are duly noted in the text.
Contents
Acknowledgements v
Abbreviations vii
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Nietzsche’s meta-existentialism 18
Chapter Two
Meta-existentialism and Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics 43
Chapter Three
Will to power: existence and the qualitative aspect of power 79
Chapter Four
Nobility and decadence: the vulnerabilities of Nietzsche’s strong type 106
Chapter Five
Greek glory and decadence: a case study 138
Conclusion 180
Bibliography 183
Index 189
Description:The author presents a new existential interpretation of Nietzsche. He argues that Nietzsche's approach, especially in his mature works, is to make the typical existential position foundational, and then to develop to the fullest the implications of this position. This meta-existential approach neces
